Plunder
by followsrabbit
Summary: He walks in a thief, and out with his own heart stolen - not to mention an irritating desire to spout sappy nonsense.


The commotion of music and marital celebration carries all the way from the palace, crossing Will's ears like a shadow.

He shrugs and carries on picking the lock to Tremaine Manor.

Any other night, such a roar might have stirred his gut with adrenaline and his mind towards plots to steal into the merriment. A prince's wedding must mean a fair bit of silver – not to mention alcohol — for the taking.

Yet palaces involve guards with fists that don't often look kindly upon thieves. The house of the new princess's family, however…

A grin splits at his face as the door finally yields for him. "About bloody time."

Although the Tremaine family doubtlessly left for the wedding hours prior, before darkness set in and he set out, Will keeps his feet soft against the ornate rug stretched about the foyer in greeting. His eyes skirt across it – probably worth a fair bit. They shrug away from its span of oriental patterns a moment later. But not worth the effort of lugging it out.

Silverware. Coins. Bobbles and jewelry. He's learned through a good deal of experience — most of which involved yelling, running, and the occasional night of imprisonment – that those make for far safer plunder.

With that rule in mind, he moves into a nearby parlor, swiping every shiny figurine from every dusty surface within his reach. Will shakes his head and the dust from the side of his palm as he deposits his loot into a canvas bag. "You think they'd bother to hire a decent maid with all this money," he mutters to the potpourri-pungent air.

The kitchen comes next, and all the glinting utensils it entails.

By the time he moves onto the next room, his bag bulges with plunder. He lifts it with an appraising eye, trying to gauge the bundle's weight. Not too heavy yet. He'd wager himself capable of lugging a bit more, even if the local law enforcement decides to give him a stretch of exercise on his way out.

So he ascends the stairs, and turns to the threshold of the first chamber on the right. His eyes touch upon gold. Beautiful gold, the kind that shines even in the dark with nary a bit of moonlight to lend it aid. The kind that begs a bloke's fingers to lose themselves among its luster. He blinks. The kind that stems from the head of a woman. It takes his ears a moment to register the soft cries pulling their way from her mouth.

_Bloody hell._

Sight still tangled among her golden locks, he backs away with steps as soft as her sobs – and, apparently, as tricky as imps. His feet tangle with the fringe of the carpet in a messy knot and a hard fall.

He doesn't have to look up from the floor to know that she's whipped around to spot him. (He still does.) "Hello there…"

Eyes red, she scrambles up to her feet with her plump lips parted in the prologue to a scream.

He should likely run at this point. He lifts himself up from the ground in a languid stretch instead. "Nice night, isn't it?"

"You… I'll have you arrested!"

"Really, now?" He raises an eyebrow. _Run. Now. (He still doesn't.) _"Who's to say I won't have _you _arrested?"

Her glare dries her eyes, her indignant sputter scattering her wails. "You're in my home!" The lacy hem of her dress's sleeve dances as she throws her arm out towards the bag dangling from his hands. "An intruder and a thief. How charming."

Will cants his head. "I'm no lawyer, so perhaps you can settle this for me… Is it really stealing if the family in question is about to marry into royalty?"

"Why don't I scream, and we can find out?"

He drops his bag and raises his hands in surrender. "No need for that now. Question settled, curiosity sated, all is well. I'll just leave and you…" He waves his hands about. "You can get back to whatever it is you were doing."

"I think," she says through a rigid jaw, "I'd rather scream."

"And I'd really rather you didn't. Seems we have a conflict of interests."

"This isn't a _conflict of interests_, it's a crime!"

For all that his feet feel rooted to the floor, his arms have no more trouble crossing themselves than his tongue does forming a reply. "And not a sodding good one, if you ask me. I'm about to walk out empty-handed all because a little girl – who wasn't supposed to be home at the moment, mind you – asked me to."

Her lower lips tremors. Her jaw stays firm. He keeps talking. "Can't blame a bloke for thinking every member of the ever-so-impressive Tremaine family would have gone to the royal wedding. Your sister's, I take it?"

A deep breath quivers from her mouth. "_Step-sister's."_

"Lovely." Reaching back down for his knapsack, he edges slowly towards her. "Now, how about I just dump the contents of this out onto your floor, take my bag, and go far, far away?"

Her arms twine into a pretzel. "No."

"No?" His voice lifts along with his brow. "To the return of your possessions or my departure?"

"Neither." '_You imbecile' _sits unsaid beside the denial, etched into a sneer on her face. It's she now who edges closer to him, each word and step a taunt. "I'm going to walk downstairs with you, and you're going to place every single thing you stole back in its place. And then, if I'm feeling very forgiving, I'll let you go without a sentence in the stocks." Her long blonde hair drifts down her collarbone in waves, close enough for him to touch by the time she finishes.

Will gulps. "Right then."

* * *

"That was a few more inches to the left." The words swirl form her mouth in a lazy command, completely certain of their power.

Will grits his teeth, glares down at the bloody china unicorn, and moves it accordingly. "So, if _your majesty_ doesn't mind me asking, why exactly aren't you out drinking champaign and dancing the night away?"

Her tongue seems to turn to stone along with her stare.

His eyes remain fixed on his task, his face lowered to the ground to hide a burgeoning smirk. "Not a people person? How shocking."

Anger does a fine job of prodding her vocal chords back into use. "And you? Not important enough to merit an invitation?" He doesn't have to turn around to see a sharp grin cracking her lips. "How shocking."

"Well, we can't all be lords and ladies, now can we? I'm afraid the sons of bakers aren't quite up to snuff."

Lighter returned, mirror replaced, figurine the seventeenth returned… The weight of his few remaining pieces of plunder hardly registers at his arms.

A moment later, she cracks their silence, this one more ponderous than stony. "You were that boy who worked at the bakery. The one that closed last year."

"Brilliant deduction there." He tries not to think about the bakery as it sits now – all boarded up and empty. Nothing but a place to sleep, upon occasion.

She ignores him. "I remember you. I used to walk by there all the time…"

"And yet I don't recall ever seeing you. What a pity."

Shaking her head, she waves his words away. "Oh, I never went in. Mother doesn't like me to have sweets."

His reply wears a tone as dry as the stale bread he was once in charge of throwing away – back when his father was still alive enough to bake said bread, and the bakery's business still lucrative enough to sell it. "With your sweet disposition? Astounding." He sets the last bobble down with a clang. "And that is the last of it."

Her eyes linger on his fingers as they lift up from the tabletop. "Fine."

"_Fine_… Should I take that to foretell a night in the stockades?"

A snort slips from her mouth. "As if there was ever anyone nearby to arrest you. _Everybody _is either at the royal wedding or clamoring at the palace gates for a glimpse of the new princess."

"Yet you were sitting here. Alone. In the dark." He could mention the tears and the soft whining cries. His tongue stays still.

The smile that crosses her lips is as bitter as the laugh that follows it. "Please. My step-sister only invited us to rub her triumph in our noses. My sister and mother might be willing to put up with it for pride's sake, but I'm hardly about to stand around all night, reminded of—" With a snap, she cuts herself off. "You should go."

His eyes trace the shadows of frowns that haunt her cheeks. "Of course…" She stares at him. He backs away towards the door. "I'll be off then."

Still, she keeps staring and silent.

"You know," he says with one foot already edged out of the house. "You could be off with me, if you'd like." A firework bursts in the distance, sprinkling above the palace's highest tower. "Bit of fresh air, a few fireworks…" Will bites his tongue too late — bloody hell, he's lost his mind. But then a choke of laughter finally breaks her silence, and he gives himself over to insanity once more. "Or spend the rest of the evening sulking, your choice."

Disbelief curls the corners of her lips. "As opposed to loitering about with a thief, and a terrible one at that?" She pauses to lift his chin slightly. "And I was hardly sulking."

"To the second point, you very well were. As to the first, I'll have you know that I can be a sodding good thief when I put my mind to it."

"Is that supposed to be a recommendation of character?"

A deep breath leaves his chest (likely whatever dregs of sanity he had left to him), and he extends a hand forward. "My name's Will. Thief, orphan, and baker of just about anything that lacks raisins. I'm afraid that's all the introduction I can give you at the moment."

She looks at his arm as though some new species of plant life has suddenly burst into her path. His hand wavers in the air for several seconds before she brushes her fingers with his. "Anastasia."

Flowery words sit at the tip of his tongue, ready to compliment the prettiness of her name, the prettiness of her, the prettiness of things he shouldn't spend time thinking about given that they belong to a snob of a girl he just tried to rob.

(She follows him out to the starlight lying beyond her property, and he loses his gaze in her once more anyway, as she loses hers in the fireworks above their heads.)


End file.
